


Grey Sweaters

by perhapsless



Category: In the Bleak Midwinter (Webcomic)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Idk mostly just anya & delta maybe kinda bonding a little possibly, but delta and anya are shook right now and need friends, continuation from my 'anya stress baking cinnamon rolls and delta stress eating them' drabble, idk i just want them to be friends!!!, just assume a lot of cat and mouse insults and manipulation prior to this, just let me have that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29196459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perhapsless/pseuds/perhapsless
Summary: Anya stress bakes, Delta stress eats, and maybe they meet in the middle.
Relationships: Anya/Delta, Anya/Omega, Delta/Anya
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Grey Sweaters

  
  


She’s not sure what’s worse, the fact that she’s been sitting here for hours with the enemy of her species, or the fact that it feels entirely natural.

They’re both sitting on the kitchen floor, backs against the island, eating cinnamon buns directly from the baking dish. In retrospect, it’s possible neither of them have eaten anything else in the past two days. Both of them wandering the halls like ghosts bound to their duties, chasing after the memory of a man far beyond their grasp. 

She wonders what Ivan would think if he was here, seeing her laughing with Delta like an old friend, and quickly banishes the thought. It’s too painful to think of Ivan, to consider that he might not be of use to the wraith at all, that he might-

No, she can’t think about Ivan. 

Instead she focuses on Omega, the man she knows is alive, the man, the universe has told her, that is meant to hold her heart. His brother is a creature of many things, most of them sharp and cruel and cold around the edges, but she’s coming to realize that he, too, is just a man. 

She’s known for some time that there must be more to Delta than meets the eye, that he wasn’t just a calculating, merciless machine, that surely there was something more human in there than either would ever admit. He’s Omega’s brother, after all, and from the moment he towered over her in that abandoned building, she knew Omega was something far bigger than Iv-than  _ Alexei  _ understood.

The breakthrough comes two days prior. The breakthrough comes when the wraith sends them a haunting message, tells them that Omega would never be seen again. The breakthrough comes when he looks from the hologram to meet her eyes, his fists and jaw clenched, his eyes wide, for the first time in her presence, terrified. The breakthrough comes when she finds Delta in the library, staring sightlessly through the tall windows to the city below, unnaturally still. 

The breakthrough comes like this: 

_ She watches him for a moment, her stomach churning, then sits in the high-backed chair next to him. He doesn’t acknowledge her at first, just keeps staring straight ahead, his expression fathomless.  _

_ “What’s he like?” _

_ The words are out before she can stop them, finally making public the only thing she can think about some days. Omega is a mystery to her, a strange one, because she also feels like she’s known him her whole life. When they’d spoken, when they’d touched, however briefly- _

_ Like an old favorite song she hasn’t heard in a while, like the softest cardigan from under her bed, like a flashbulb memory.  _ I know you, I just don’t know how. 

_ If Delta is angered by the question, he doesn’t show it. He looks at her, at first confused, and then- _

_ And then she could swear something  _ softens  _ in his expression, and he takes a seat opposite to her.  _

_ “I suppose you haven’t truly known him yet, have you?” He crosses an ankle over his knee, props his chin on his elbow as he reclines in the chair. “It must be strange.” _

_ “The one full conversation we’ve managed to have ended with me shooting him in the chest,” she admits, and she’s surprised to see the ghost of a grin drift across his face, gone almost as soon as it came. “All I have is that he’s logical to a fault, he’s  _ determined  _ to pretend he’s devoid of emotion, and that he’s  _ extremely  _ stubborn.”  _

_ A pause. The library is so quiet- everything in the base often is, without the pesky bustle and sweat and muttering and complaining of human life- and Delta is so still, so perfectly posed, she can almost imagine that she’s merely sitting across from a statue cut from marble. The room is dark, and it’s strange how she’s gotten so used to that, strange to think that he can probably see her as well as in broad daylight. She can see the lights reflecting from the city outside on his pale skin, shadows cast from his nose and jaw.  _

_ Did Omega, too, roam these cold halls in darkness? Did he miss the light? _

_ Delta’s gaze is sweeping over her face, his deep emerald eyes almost black in the shadows, slowly tracing a path from her eyes to her mouth. It’s as if he’s searching for something, his brow furrowed ever so slightly. He must have found it, because he finally speaks. _

_ “My brother,” he begins, the hand holding his chin sinking to rest on his crossed ankle, “Was always the quietest of us. The most reserved. As a child, we used to think he was shy, but really I think he’s just very observant.” He smiles wryly, his gaze far away now, looking out to the buildings across the library windows. “He’s certainly never had an issue speaking up when he disagreed with me.  _ Stubborn _ is a word for it.”  _

_ “He’s...opinionated,” she guesses, and Delta nods. “It’s certainly what got him to actually talk to me.”  _

_ “What  _ did  _ he say to you?” Delta asks, his head tilting curiously. “I’ve always wondered. You’re not a killer, clearly,” he gestures to her, offensively dismissive, “And I would presume you, like most humans, put a certain amount of stock in the idea of soul mates. What did he say to get so thoroughly under your skin?” _

_ She stares at him, taken aback by the idea that Delta seems to think she’d shot him out of irritation rather than self-defense. “I shot him to escape, not because I was irritated. I-” and she hesitates, looking into her hands. It’s not as if she has anything to gain by lying, she reasons. Delta always seems to see through her, anyway. “I hated shooting him more than anything. I can’t tell you how…. _ wrong _ it felt,” and she’s disgusted with herself when her voice shakes, “But as he told me, we were at war. And I was told that killing him would end it.”  _

_ “How interesting,” Delta drawls. His tone sounds far more sincere than usual, and as she glances up to find him staring her down, she’s struck by how similar the expression is to his brother’s. “You were willing to destroy your own soul to end a war?”  _

_ Is she? At the time, she’d thought she was, but now…. _

_ She thinks of Omega’s dark gaze, the somehow familiar warmth it conjured in her chest, the way his touch at the city square had felt so comforting even as she struggled. She thinks of the way his voice, deep and smooth, had set her nerves at ease even as she hid from him, how his presence at once was terrifying and soothing.  _

_ “No,” she says suddenly, surprising herself. “I was, at the time, but….”  _

_ She thinks of Misha, so young to know so much of suffering and so little of the world. His little missing tooth he’d proclaimed was his lucky tooth, his dimples and his tiny rusted race cars, his ginger curls that looked so much like his brother’s.  _

_ And she thinks of Ivan, and then  _ doesn’t  _ think of Ivan, because it’s too painful. She’s not an idiot, she knows there’s a fragile  _ something  _ between them, but also knows that it would be cruel to him to pursue it. Cruel to ask him to be second to another man. Sickening to think that she’d give him up immediately if Omega asked her to be his.  _

_ And yet. She’d shot him for them.  _

_ “I don’t know. I think some part of me knew I couldn’t kill him. I was relieved when my numbers didn’t fade, but not really surprised.”  _

_ “And yet you say that you argued,” Delta says, a small smirk teasing at his lips. “Come, now. An answer for an answer. What did you argue about?”  _

_ She frowns at him. “Would it be impossible for you to just tell me about him? Must we play games?”  _

_ “We must,” Delta says dryly. “This is a new aspect of Omega for me as well, you understand. I’m curious what he’s like around you.”  _

_ She blinks. She hasn’t thought that this must be strange for the others, but then again, it can’t be for nothing that Omega is so firmly opposed to the concept of soul mates. “I died,” she says simply, “And woke up on his coat. He told me that we weren’t soul mates, that there had been a  _ mistake,”  _ and she raises an eyebrow at Delta, gratified to see the smirk shift from his lips. “I’m sure that wasn’t just something he came up with in a vacuum, hmm?”  _

_ The android holds her gaze, but she stares right back, just as stubborn. He sighs, running a hand through his hair- it’s messier, she realizes late, not slicked back. “As I said,” Delta begins, “He was always more quiet. Pensive. He was the last our mother created, and the most…”  _

_ “Human?”  _

_ “Perhaps the least like  _ us,”  _ he amends, his nose wrinkling slightly. “He’s always felt a pull for humanity, he’d tell me. A sympathy. Our mother used to tell him it was because of the soul mark, because there was someone out there who would make it all make sense.” He looks at her pointedly. “As you can guess, many of us thought it was simply a mistake. And after her murder, we agreed further.”  _

_ “Murder-”  _

_ Delta raises a hand, silencing her. “I will talk to you about Omega.” His tone is final, and she doesn’t bother pressing. Another time. _

_ “And Omega thought it was a mistake, too?” _

_ “No,” Delta sighs, shifting in his seat. “He didn’t at first. He told me a few times, long ago, that he felt empty sometimes, even around all of us. That he felt incomplete. I tried to assure him that it was simply our mother’s beliefs in his head, and I think eventually he agreed. He hasn’t spoken about his soul mark in nearly twenty years.” He pauses, then something in his expression shifts, his jaw tightens, and she’s reminded that he’s  _ not  _ human, not now. “After Alpha’s murder, he lost interest in a mate. Humans, you see, are untrustworthy and faulty.”  _

_ “Faulty,” she echoes. “That’s the word he used for me. Right before claiming he had no soul at all. Is that what you think?”  _

_ “It’s what I know.”  _

_ “And yet you love him.”  _

_ There’s another pause as Delta considers this, his chin resting in his hand again, pointer finger lazily tapping his temple. “You know,” he starts, gesturing in her direction,” You’re a very strange human. Most of your kind simply think we’re programmed to defend one another.”  _

_ “Thanks,” she responds dryly. “I’ve heard that from my own kind, too.”  _

_ She refuses to give him the answers he wants, not until he’s given in, and he seems to know this. She thinks it’s probably the stress of the night, the message they’re both refusing to talk about, that loosens some of his inhibition.  _

_ She thinks maybe he needs a friend.  _

_ “Yes, I love him,” he says finally. “More than anything. He, Gamma, and I are all that’s left of our family. Even before,” he admits, looking past her to the buildings outside, “He was, perhaps, my favorite. He was thoughtful and intelligent, but also headstrong. Deeply sarcastic, even as a child. Very quiet, very funny. He’d read half the contents of our mother’s library by the time he was twelve.” He glances back at her. “He once snuck a cat in and kept it hidden for four days. Dirty, ratty old thing. Epsilon and I discovered it when he refused to come to dinner. He’d been trying to nurse a dying cat back to life, and our mother determined it needed to be euthanized. He cried for two days.”  _

_ She tries to wrap her head around it, to picture the cold, hardened general as a quiet child that cried for stray cats. She can’t do it, honestly, but whoever Delta is describing…. _

_ It feels right.  _

_ “The actions of a soulless machine,” she nods, and Delta visibly bites back a chuckle.  _

_ “We’re soulless, not heartless,” he explains. “We simply aren’t prone to the rash, illogical decisions of your sort.”  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ “And that’s what constitutes a soul?” She raises an eyebrow at him, arms folded defiantly. “Your only justification is that you’re more like Spock than Kirk, is that it?”  _

_ “Please don’t make me respond to a Star Trek reference.”  _

_ “What, more of a Stargate guy?”  _

_ She sees it again, sees him almost grin.  _

_ Yes, he needs a friend.  _

_ “Regardless, he’s grown up since we were children,” he continues, folding his hands delicately in his lap. “The boy that gave in to such emotions is gone, now. Or at least buried. You know,” he says, tilting his head, his posture suddenly straight. “You remind me of him, sometimes. From before the War.” He looks at her,  _ really  _ looks at her, his gaze burrowing into hers. “I wonder how much of him you’ll bring out.”  _

_ “Does that concern you?” she asks, blurts out, really. His expression is challenging, as if he knows what she’s about to say and  _ wants _ her to say it.  _

_ “You think I’m worried that I’ll lose my general,” he prompts, and she refuses to respond, mostly just to spite him. He chuckles, the sound dry, humorless. “Omega’s humanity,” and he hisses the word like it’s a violent crime, like the very existence of it is something to be whispered and not spoken about, “May be more present with you, but he won’t shirk his duties in the face of it. Of this I am certain.”  _

_ He definitely  _ seems _ certain, but something tells Anya he’s not really, something tells her- _

_ “You’re willing to risk it for him, aren’t you?”  _

_ Delta stares into her eyes, and his expression morphs into the dark, seamless mask she’s much more accustomed to.  _

_ “Aren’t you?”  _

_ The words are cold, harsh, and she knows this impasse she’s brought them to will not be solved tonight. Sighing, she gets up, moves to leave, her eyes adjusting to the darkness as she gets further and further from the windows. _

_ “You’ll love him, you know,” she hears from behind her, and she almost stops in her tracks. “More than you realize.”  _

They haven’t spoken much since that night. Maybe partially because Delta’s thrown himself into his work, the message-  _ and then there were two- _ weighing heavier on him than she could have predicted. Maybe because she’s been baking and reading and loudly singing ABBA songs just to avoid thinking about the two men missing. 

Maybe because they both realize that they’ve crossed a line with one another that can’t be redrawn. 

So she’s sitting on the floor beside the leader of an army that wants her kind dead, quite literally breaking sweet bread, and asking what his favorite color is. 

“Strange question. I’ve never understood it. What  _ is  _ it with you humans and caring about it?”

“Listen, it says a lot about someone. You could answer with something really bizarre, like...like, I don’t know, beige, and I’d have to ask you what you see in beige. Or you can say it’s blue and then I’ll have to force you to describe what shade, exactly.” 

Delta shakes his head, tearing off another glazed pecan from his current (Anya guesses his fifth) roll. “I’m not sure that I have a favorite, just a few I’m partial to. And yours?”

“Orange. Specifically the shade of the blood tubes our clinic sent out for septicaemia.” Delta blinks at her, and she realizes this is somewhat of a stange answer. “What? It’s pretty,” she says defensively, and Delta laughs. 

“You’re right,” he says, shaking his head, “That does, in fact, tell me everything I need to know about you.” 

“Do you…. Does your kind get  _ septic?”  _ She asks, frowning at her roll. “I feel useless, here. I’m a human nurse, but as far as I can tell you, you guys are kind of… self-regulating.” 

Delta hums, chewing, and narrows his eyes in thought. “No, not particularly. Our bodies regenerate too quickly for an infection to really set in. I do wonder if you’ll be of any help when we find my brother.” 

It’s exactly what she’s been wondering. 

And it’s exactly what she’s trying to avoid thinking too hard about.

“What’s his favorite color?” 

His lips quirk at the question. “Have  _ you _ seen him wear anything but black, white, or grey in these months? Because I haven’t in  _ years _ .” He takes another bite, then leans his back against the island wall. “His favorite coffee mug is crimson.” 

“So he’s a coffee man. I can see that.” 

“That’s putting it delicately. Once I made the mistake of trying to get him out of bed without it.” Delta closes his eyes and chuckles. “Once.” 

“Noted.” 

She gets the sense that he misses him, that he’s opening up specifically because he’s lonely here without him. Or to manipulate her into caring for him, so he can use her more freely in his long-term aims.

Or, as she’s starting to realize is often the case with Delta, a bit of both. 

When he opens his eyes again, they’re glowing deep green, replaying some long-lost memory.

“We couldn’t go to  _ school, _ ” he begins, “Because we weren’t human, and we wouldn’t have been accepted, regardless. So our mother taught us at home. Of course, most of our knowledge came pre-programmed, but still, she insisted. She had us read a defense of creationism, once, some old minister proclaiming that evolution was an evil creation of Satan,” and he waved his hand here, rolling his eyes, “To teach us the importance of understanding the viewpoints of others-” 

“And this lesson worked swimmingly,” Anya nods sagely, and Delta’s lip quirk into that elusive grin once more.

“And Omega spent three hours writing a ten-page essay detailing exactly why that man was incorrect. Sources cited. He wasn’t even trying to convince our mother of it, he was just irritated that someone could be so stupid.” 

Anya can’t help but laugh at that, trying to picture a younger Omega hunched over a keyboard, furiously typing. 

“So that’s Omega for you,” he finishes, plopping the last of Roll #5 in his mouth. “He writes a ten-page essay for no reason except his own annoyance, then spends the evening perfecting Fur Elise on the piano, and stays up all night reading. We couldn’t get him out of bed before noon most days. He’s fond of cats and very fast cars and doesn’t function, at least not  _ pleasantly,  _ without coffee. And his fashion sense consists of suits and the odd sweater.” 

“Grey sweaters?”

“Grey sweaters.” 

She considers this, hands Delta the last of the cinnamon rolls and sighs. “I kind of miss him now, too.” 

Delta looks at her again, like he did two days ago in the library, watching her for something. She wonders if he’s growing fond of her, or just her use to him. Or both. Always both, with Delta.

“We  _ will  _ find him,” he says finally, and she swallows thickly, that familiar anxiety welling up in her chest again. She leans her forehead into one of her palms, willing a miracle, and feels the weight of a hand on her shoulder. 

He doesn’t say anything else, and she doesn’t either. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a sprint in my drabble collection about Anya baking cinnamon rolls out of stress after receiving a message from the wraith about how Omega's death is incoming. This is the continuation. My excuse is that Delta is so worried about Omega that he stepped back on the Disney Villain thing for a lil' bit lol 
> 
> I wrote this straight for like 2 days and absolutely did not edit so ye be warned


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